


Are We the Waiting

by kaydeefalls



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Boys Are Bad At Feelings, Friends to Not Quite Lovers, Introspection, M/M, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Resolved Romantic Tension, Slow Burn, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Unresolved Sexual Tension, but definitely getting there, filling the gaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/pseuds/kaydeefalls
Summary: Poe would much rather spend what little remains of his emotional energy mooning over a cute boy than continue rehashing every single moronic decision he'd made during the flight to Crait, or tally up the ships and lives lost for the hundredth time.And hehadseen Finn first.(Post-TLJ, pre-TRoS. Poe tries to sort his shit out, and also, Finn.)
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 27
Kudos: 167





	Are We the Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Lifelong Star Wars fan, first time writing for it, let's do this. Title via Green Day.

Years later, that frantic, awful time between the destruction of Starkiller base and the escape from Crait will blur together in Poe's recollection into one long nightmare of exhaustion, terror, anger, and helplessness. Memory can be kind in that way; the human mind has ways of healing itself. Better not to dwell on all the individual, horrible, shameful moments.

But right now, on the Falcon, the remnants of the Resistance so few in number that they can all fit (albeit snugly) onto one creaky old smuggling freighter, the weight of the immediate past is crushing with loss.

Stars above, how could Poe have been so _stupid_? If he hadn't been so reckless -- if he'd obeyed his chain of command -- if he had stopped for one kriffing minute to _think_ instead of just reacting blindly to every new thing…

In a little cubbyhole, Finn tucks his knees up to his chin and stares searchingly down at Rose's still, unmoving face, and bitter self-recrimination twists in Poe's chest at the sight of it. His harebrained mission nearly got them both killed. And for what? Who the hell was Poe to be sending anyone but his own pilots off to die?

He'd barely even known Rose beforehand -- she was just another engineer to him, albeit one of the better ones, and Paige Tico's kid sister. Paige, who _had_ died under Poe's direct orders, bringing down that dreadnought. For all the damn good it had done them in the end.

And Finn -- he's only known Finn for, what, a handful of days? It's shocking to think of it in terms of actual time spent together. It doesn't add up correctly. It should be weeks. It should be _years_.

Finn must feel the weight of his gaze, because he looks up at Poe, then. Scrounges up a smile from somewhere, barely even a quirk of his lips, but his eyes seem to glow with it. And Poe smiles back helplessly, the barest spark of flame in the darkness.

* * *

When he finally manages to snatch some sleep, curled up on a pile of blankets in what might have been a storage room or a smuggling compartment, his dreams are full of the Finalizer and rows upon rows of identical Stormtroopers taking turns beating him, prodding him with electricity, and then Kylo Ren is there behind that cruel, impassive mask of a helmet, his gloved hand grasping and tugging into the ugliest depths of Poe's mind, ripping, tearing, _burning_ \--

Then there's a blinding light, somehow soothing despite its terrible brightness, and it shoves Kylo Ren back into the void.

He awakens with a jolt to find his whole body soaked with sweat, and Rey's thin, pale face very close to his.

"It was just a nightmare," she tells him soberly. "I'm sorry. I get them too."

Her hand hovers over his shoulder, not quite touching. She sees him notice and pulls away self-consciously.

"Sorry," Poe says thickly. "Didn't mean to bother anyone -- was I making a lot of noise or something?"

"No. Not aloud, anyway." Rey shrugs, a little awkward. "But I could hear you screaming. Inside, I mean. I hope I didn't frighten you by waking you like that, but it sounded like a particularly nasty dream."

Poe scrubs a hand across his damp face. "Yeah."

They don't speak again, but she remains sitting cross-legged by his side in the stillness, her eyes closed like she's meditating or something. When he eventually drops back into sleep, he doesn't dream at all.

* * *

It takes two full days aboard the Falcon before Poe realizes that Finn's avoiding him.

In fairness, there's kind of a lot going on, and too many beings crammed into a relatively small space. And maybe "avoiding" isn't quite the right word -- it's not like Finn's going out of his way to dodge him. He spends most of his time either talking quietly with Rey or sitting at Rose's bedside, while Poe is mostly up in the cockpit with Chewie, on the comms with anyone the Resistance can think to contact, or talking strategy with Leia and her depleted handful of commanders. But still, two full days go by without Poe seeing him for longer than a nod or a quick hello. Finn, whose presence normally shines like a goddamn sun, is tucking into himself now, making himself small and unobtrusive and forgettable.

Well, Poe's certainly not about to forget him.

Night and day have no real meaning when you're not dirtside, and starships have their own ways of measuring time, but it's a quieter time on the Falcon, anyway, when most of the beings aboard are doing their best to sleep. Poe finds Finn perched at the edge of Rose's cubbyhole of a bed, as expected.

"Hey," Poe says quietly, pulling up a storage crate to serve as a chair. "How's she doing?"

Finn glances around quickly, but in tight quarters like these, you get used to carving out little privacies where you can, doing your best to politely ignore anyone nearby. No one in their area seems to be awake at all, but if someone is, they're not paying Poe and Finn any mind.

"Hasn't woken up yet, but the med droid's been jabbing her with something that I think is supposed to keep her asleep anyway." Finn shrugs, though his face is drawn with worry. "It said she'll heal better that way."

"Yeah, rest is pretty much the best treatment for concussions," Poe agrees, as though he knows the first damn thing about it. "She'll be okay, Finn. She's just lucky you were able to get her off the battlefield."

"Lucky? Yeah, right. It's my fault she got hurt so bad in the first place."

"She volunteered to fly one of the speeders. She knew the risk."

"No, Poe, you don't get it." Finn hunches his shoulders forward, but he manages to meet Poe's eyes for the first time in this entire conversation. "I was trying to take out the cannon. She crashed into my speeder to stop me. To save me."

Poe's chest goes tight, like his heart decided to skip a couple of beats. "You -- I told you that was a suicide run. I ordered you to retreat."

"Yeah, well, I didn't."

He has to close his eyes for a moment, taking a few deep breaths. The worst part, he thinks distantly, is that he hadn't even _known_. He'd been so busy dodging blasts in his own speeder that he'd never realized Finn hadn't pulled off. If not for Rose, Finn would've been vaporized before Poe even knew to look for him. "When Rose wakes up," he says, far too calmly, "I'm gonna give her a kriffing medal." Poe reaches out to grip Finn's knee, hard. "And Finn, buddy, you have _got_ to stop almost getting yourself killed, okay?"

It's been, what, a week since Finn woke up from his coma? If that? And the battle for Starkiller had been scant days after they'd crashed on Jakku, where Poe had assumed his ex-Stormtrooper ally had been lost with their ship. Poe's heart can't take much more of this shit, it really can't.

Finn hesitantly covers Poe's hand with his own, just for a moment. "Yeah," he agrees quietly. "Okay."

* * *

The first time they met, Finn seemed to Poe like a shooting star: bright and dazzlingly beautiful, and gone far too soon. Poe's memories of their escape from the Finalizer are fractured, dreamlike. That rigid white anonymous helmet yanked off to reveal an unexpectedly handsome face (and yeah, a part of Poe wonders what it says about him that _that's_ the first thing he'd noticed). Warm, dark eyes, so intent on his own. The shock mingled with awe at the realization that this really was a genuine kriffing _Stormtrooper_ trying to _defect_ with him. It was unheard of. Poe might've fallen a little in love with him just for the sheer novelty of it.

They'd slipped into teamwork so effortlessly that Poe'd wondered if he had actually passed out from the torture and was dreaming the whole episode. Head still swimming, with this beautiful boy at his back, Poe really thought he might be able to take on the entire First Order armada with one stolen TIE fighter.

And then he'd come crashing back down to earth. Literally. And woken up alone in the freezing darkness of a desert night to find his ship, his jacket, and his new friend lost to the sands. Finn had barely had his name for five minutes. It had felt brutally unfair, and Poe had wasted more time than he should have, that night and the next morning, searching for any sign of the wreckage or any tracks away from it, hoping against hope that Finn might still be out there, somewhere. But he was gone.

Until he showed up again on D'Qar with the Falcon like a miracle. Poe had damn near kissed him right there on the tarmac just out of sheer relief.

Now, in his darker moments, Poe can't quite shake off a lingering suspicion that it was meant to be the other way around -- that Poe should have been the comet blazing through _Finn's_ orbit, the dashing pilot who gave Finn his name and his freedom and then plummeted to earth, gone again in an eyeblink. That maybe it would have been better that way. He would have been just one more glorious martyr to the Resistance, and Finn could have remembered him fondly as he forged his own, brighter path.

Maybe Poe has never been the hero of his own story.

* * *

They come to rest on Ryloth, for a time. Resistance allies there provide them with a series of interconnected caves to use as a base of operations. Poe finds it laughably small when he first inspects it, barely a quarter the size of their base on D'Qar, and how could they possibly--

It only takes a heartbeat for the rest of his brain to catch up to his calculations, and it's nearly a physical blow. He has to put his hand out to the cave wall to brace himself for a few long minutes while he just breathes.

There's way more space than they currently need. He tells their Twi'lek friend that this will do just fine, thanks, and then finds a nice quiet side cave to have a little bit of a breakdown.

Later, while everyone's settling in, Poe seeks out the General. She's already sectioned off a corner of one of the caverns for her own private space, but she seems content enough to be interrupted.

"Am I gonna be court-martialed?" Poe asks. He's always been blunter than he ought, with Leia. "I know we don't have much of a court to, y'know, martial, but I figure what's left of your staff can still get the job done."

"Don't be ridiculous," she replies briskly. "I don't have the personnel to spare for that sort of rigamarole."

That's fair. "Okay. So, uh, how are we doing this, then? Do you want my formal resignation, or…?"

Leia lifts an eyebrow, which never fails to make him feel like a kid being summoned to the schoolmaster's office. "Weren't you listening to what I just said? I don't have the staff to spare. That includes you, Poe. I'm sorry, Commander, but you're just going to have to carry on with the weight of your mistakes like everyone else."

Poe's chest feels very tight. "Captain. You demoted me to Captain."

"Yeah, well, that was then, this is now, and I don't give a damn." She looks him over, and her voice softens a little, though her words are as sharp as ever. "We're stretched way too thin as it is, and I need my best people around me. The Resistance can't afford for you to have a crisis of confidence right now, Poe."

His laugh catches in his throat like a sob, and he rakes a hand through his hair. "I think I'd have to be a pretty shitty person not to, though. So many people died -- I tried to lead a _mutiny_ , Leia."

"Yes, you did. Are you going to try it again?"

He shakes his head mutely.

"Good. Now pull your head out of your ass and get back to work," she tells him, not unkindly. "Understood, _Commander_ Dameron?"

"Understood," he says hoarsely. "General."

* * *

Rose Tico wakes up, and by daybreak, she's already rigged up a full communications array from her sickbed. Finn, clearly still blaming himself for her injuries, runs hither and yon all day at her bidding. Poe just watches the pair of them out of the corner of his eye bemusedly. He's glad they get on so well -- that bust of a mission must have been one hell of a trip -- but it leaves him feeling oddly wrong-footed. Kinda like when he sees Finn and Rey bend their heads together, whispering, thick as thieves.

It reminds him that he has no real claim on Finn, for all that _Poe_ met him first. That, actually, Finn's already made closer friends here than Poe, and by the way, they're also both gorgeous and fiercely intelligent women that anyone so inclined would definitely want to make time with. Finn may have been a Stormtrooper, but his eyes obviously work just fine.

Not that Poe's the least bit jealous or anything.

In a way, that sort of petty silliness is a welcome distraction from the buckets of awful in Poe's head right now. He'd much rather spend what little remains of his emotional energy mooning over a cute boy than continue rehashing every single moronic decision he'd made during the flight to Crait, or tally up the ships and lives lost for the hundredth time.

And he really _had_ seen Finn first.

* * *

He asks Rose about it, once, when Finn is off reviewing First Order tactics with Connix and a few other strategists, and Rose needs someone able-bodied and willing to haul equipment around for her. She's doing a lot better -- no trace of the concussion -- but she's still got an arm in a sling from the speeder crash, and she's forbidden from heavy lifting until it's healed.

"It's just a sprain," she grouses. "It's not even my dominant arm!"

Anyway, after the worst of the crap has been arranged to her exacting specifications, she graciously concedes that he's not entirely useless as a mechanic and permits him to assist with some of the rewiring. Shoulder to shoulder with her under the open electronic panel, his hands occupied, he tries to keep his tone nonchalant, like this is any other bit of gossip. "So, you and Finn have gotten pretty close."

"Well, we almost died together a few times there," she replies wryly. "It's a bonding experience."

_Tell me about it, sister,_ he doesn't say. He remembers BB-8 rolling screeching across the tarmac to him after the Takodana mission, beeping excitedly about his new friends, and looking up to see that impossibly beautiful face, so utterly unexpected. The jolt of heat that nearly left him breathless when he recognized Finn was wearing his own jacket.

"Yeah," is all he says. He shakes his head to clear it. "He stayed by your side practically the whole time you were out, you know. He was really worried about you."

It's hard to tell, glancing sidelong as they continue adjusting the wiring, but he's pretty sure her cheeks flush a little. "He's a good man."

"He is," Poe agrees -- casually, he thinks, but something in his tone must twig her, because she stops working entirely and turns her head to look him full in the face.

"Kriffing hell," she breathes. "Poe Dameron, are you giving me the shovel talk?"

Poe fidgets, staring intently at the pliers in his hand. "Um. No?"

"You _are_! Oh, this is too rich. Seriously?"

"I'm just asking!" he says defensively. "Look, I know it's none of my business--"

"It's not," Rose agrees, rolling her eyes. "But whatever. Nothing's going on, okay? We're friends. That's all." She lets out a disgusted snort. "Stars above, are the males of _all_ species totally emotionally constipated, or is that a uniquely human trait?"

Despite the sarcasm, there's a ruefulness in her tone that silences him, and he drops the matter. But Poe sees the way her eyes follow Finn, sometimes, when he's not paying attention. He recognizes the longing there. And why wouldn't he? It's like looking in a mirror.

* * *

Two squadrons of fighters had been sent out on recruitment missions immediately following the destruction of Starkiller. Rose manages to isolate and decode a message left on an encrypted frequency from Black Squadron.

"They've rendez-voused with Inferno and both squadrons are hunkered down on Ikkrukk," she reports to the full staff, eyes bright. "Awaiting further instructions. But from what I can tell, they sent out this message days ago, when they heard the distress call we broadcasted from Crait. If they're following security protocols, they'll have switched frequencies by now, and we don't have the systems in place yet to be able to reach back out to them."

Leia nods. "We'll have to send someone to Ikkrukk to retrieve them. Yes, Poe, I know you're volunteering, you can put your hand down."

"They _are_ my pilots," Poe points out. He's nearly vibrating with a mixture of excitement and relief. Two full squadrons! He'd nearly forgotten they'd been out on mission during the retreat from D'Qar, and not lost with the rest of the fleet. "I can get to Ikkrukk in...thirty-six hours, probably, if you let me take the Falcon."

Rey makes a faint noise of distress, but he ignores her. She's welcome to come with if she's so worried about her precious ship.

"Of course," Leia says without hesitation. "You'll need--"

At Leia's right hand, Commander D'Acy clears her throat. "Excuse me, General," she says quietly. "But are you sure it's wise to send _Dameron_?"

The thing is, she and Poe got on well enough, before the retreat to Crait. Before his mutiny. And, he remembers, her wife was reassigned to Black Squadron for this mission. So he gets where she's coming from, he really does. He can't blame her for having doubts.

Just because Leia seems to have forgiven him doesn't mean the rest of her staff has. He should have expected the other shoe to drop eventually.

What he definitely _doesn't_ expect, though, is for Finn to suddenly be all up in D'Acy's face. "What are you implying, Commander?" he demands, putting the muscled bulk of his body squarely between D'Acy and Poe. "He's the best damn pilot in the Resistance, and these are _his_ squadrons. Of course he's gonna bring them back."

D'Acy purses her lips tightly, but doesn't back down. "I'm sorry, Finn, but you weren't here--"

"So what?" he says stubbornly, jaw jutted forward. "Poe would die before he'd betray the Resistance. _You_ weren't on the Finalizer when Kylo Ren and his goons--"

Poe quickly grabs Finn's arm, tugging him back. "Hey, hey, Finn, it's okay, she's got every right to express her opinion."

"Not if it's a _stupid_ opinion," Finn mutters, but he keeps it low enough that only Poe can really hear him, and he does let Poe pull him away from her.

"Thank you, D'Acy," Leia says calmly, though Poe can see a corner of her mouth twitch a little. "I appreciate your concern. But that issue has already been resolved to my satisfaction. Poe, you'll take the Falcon to Ikkrukk. Chewbacca will go with you as copilot -- no, Rey, you need to recommence your Jedi training, I don't want you distracted right now. If that's settled--"

"Permission to accompany them?" Finn says at once.

Leia's too classy to roll her eyes, but it's a near thing. "As if I could stop you. Go ahead, I'm sure Poe will appreciate the backup."

Poe realizes he's still holding onto Finn. He releases him quickly, clapping him on the shoulder instead to cover his own faint embarrassment. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Once they've plotted the course to Ikkrukk and the Falcon has settled into hyperspace, Chewie wanders off to take a nap or something, leaving Poe and Finn alone in the cockpit.

They sit quietly for a few minutes, just staring out into space. Finally, Poe has to break the silence. "What you did, back there, with D'Acy," he says awkwardly. "You didn't have to defend my honor or anything. I mean. I don't have much honor left to defend, honestly."

Finn just shakes his head. "She shouldn't have said that."

"She wasn't wrong, though." Poe fiddles with the control panel, not really doing anything, just running his fingers along the buttons and switches, getting the layout of them into his muscle memory. "Finn, while you and Rose were on the mission to Canto Bight, I…" He trails off, throat tight with shame.

"I know," Finn says quietly. "I heard."

Poe swallows. "You did?"

"Connix told me what happened. Well, she wasn't really telling _me_ , she and Rose are friends, but I was there when she did, so…"

"Connix took my side when it went down," Poe points out, shaking his head. "So she probably tried to make it sound...well, not as bad as it really was."

"Well, it sounded to me like you were being deliberately deprived of the intel you needed to accurately assess the situation, and you were doing the best you could to protect your Fleet with the limited information you had." Finn shrugs. "But what do I know, I'm just a Stormtrooper."

"I led a mutiny, Finn," Poe says sharply. "I disobeyed my commanding officer. What would happen to a Stormtrooper who tried that, huh?"

Finn meets his gaze unflinchingly. "Summary execution. Or just reconditioning, if you were lucky. But that's what makes _us_ better than _them_ , right?" His tone softens as he goes on. "You were trying to save the people you loved, Poe. Maybe you did the wrong thing, but at least you did it for the right reasons. That's gotta count for something, I think."

He's just so damn sincere, his dark eyes warm and intent, and Poe could happily look at him forever. Instead, he scrubs a hand across his face, huffing out a weak laugh. "I guess so. You really are something, buddy, you know that?"

"A good something, I hope," Finn says wryly, and Poe laughs again, more genuinely this time.

"The best," he says, giving Finn's shoulder a quick squeeze as he gets to his feet. "Come on, let's see if we can scrounge up any snacks."

* * *

For the first time in longer than Poe would like to recall, the mission goes smoothly. It's practically a milk run. They attempt a stealth landing on Ikkrukk, which would be fine except apparently the whole Ikkrukkian armada, such as it is, has been eagerly on the lookout for them and greets them with a goddamn parade. So Black Squadron has been busy, as it turns out, and successfully liberated the locals from their desultory First Order oppression in the past week, earning the goodwill of the entire planet and many fervent vows of support for the Resistance. In fact, they're gonna send three full infantry platoons along to Ryloth just as soon as they can repair enough of their own transport vessels for the trip.

"Not too shabby, huh, boss?" Snap remarks smugly.

Poe could kiss him full on his beardy mouth. "Yeah, Wexley, I guess you did okay."

Filling his squadrons in on the Resistance's side of the past few weeks is a lot less fun. They'd already been braced for the worst, given the emergency transmission from Crait, but, well. It's a lot to take in. Poe manages to keep his voice steady while describing the First Order's relentless pursuit through hyperspace, but he starts to break down when he gets to the loss of the fleet and his own dumbass mutiny. But Finn hears his voice crack and smoothly picks up the rest of the story, giving Poe a chance to compose himself while he takes over, detailing Holdo's sacrifice, the Battle of Crait, and their escape to Ryloth in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.

Later that night, while the Ikkrukkian celebrations continue on, Snap finds Poe drinking alone off to one side, hugging his knees as he watches the rest of the festivities. He plops down onto the rocky ground beside him, taking a swig from his own unidentifiable bottle of a brownish alcohol.

"I'm sorry we weren't there," Snap finally says.

Poe huffs out a laugh. "I'm not. There wasn't much you could've done, and this way, you're all still alive to fight in the next one."

"All the same," Snap says quietly. "I'm sorry."

Poe doesn't respond, draining the rest of his drink. There's a bonfire blazing, his pilots and the locals mingling gaily to the rhythmic beat of an Ikkrukkian band, and someone's been setting off sparklers that pop and fizz in glittering waves of color high above them. Finn watches the light show with his mouth gaping open, blue and red and silver reflecting across his rich brown skin. 

Maybe Snap follows Poe's gaze, because he remarks, "So I guess your Stormtrooper stuck around, huh?"

"His name's Finn," Poe says sharply. "And he's more than earned his place with the Resistance."

Snap raises his hands in placation. "I was at Starkiller, I remember. Good to see him up and walking again."

Poe forces his muscles to relax, one by one. He feels like he's been tense and braced for a physical altercation for...oh, years, maybe. "Yeah," he says softly. "It is."

Another sparkler bursts across the sky above them, and Finn turns to grin at Poe, mouth still half-agape. "Are you _seeing_ this?" he exclaims, voice carrying easily across the space between them. "I've never seen anything like this that wasn't, like, artillery!"

It startles Poe into a laugh, catching in his throat like...oh, like something, he doesn't even know. "Yeah, Finn," he says, probably too low for Finn to actually hear him. "I see it."

If Snap raises an eyebrow at him, Poe judiciously decides to ignore it in favor of refilling his cup.

* * *

The Resistance can't stay on Ryloth forever. The caves there are too small, there's not enough concealment to build up anything resembling a fleet again, and Leia is chary of trusting the locals too much. After a few weeks of recuperation and internal assessment, she sends Poe out on a scouting mission to a carefully curated selection of former Rebellion bases.

Finn volunteers, of course. And this time Rey accompanies them as well.

"Doesn't this interfere with your fancy Jedi training?" Poe asks her, waggling his eyebrows to take the edge off it.

"Actually, it's a part of it," Rey replies primly. "I'm meant to be sussing out if there's any particularly strong...well, Force-pull, I guess you could say. Or repulsion."

"Mystic woo-woo vibes?"

She ignores it, gaze pensive. "Places have memory, just like people do. We wouldn't want to intrude where we're no longer welcome."

Poe respects that, actually.

And he doesn't mind that Rey's coming along with them. He's curious about her, this incredibly Force-sensitive desert scavenger who'd so quickly won the hearts of Finn and BB-8 on Jakku. Both droid and ex-trooper have exceptional taste in hotshot pilots, as Poe can attest, so Rey is definitely someone worth getting to know.

Even if they do spend their first three hours as co-pilots in a protracted argument about the niceties of the Millennium Falcon's engineering as relates to actually keeping the wily old junker in the air.

"They're not _really_ going to kill each other, right?" he overhears Finn muttering nervously to BB-8 at one point.

BB-8 trills back that Finn should be prepared to disarm Rey if she reaches for her lightsaber, though he may lose a hand in the process, because she is very fast and Poe will likely die horribly without Finn's intervention.

Finn, who still hasn't learned Binary, says, "Right, okay."

"Who's side are you _on_ , anyway?" Poe demands, glaring at the droid.

Rey throws her hands in the air. "Hopefully the side of the person who knows that you can't use capacity cycle fusion on an SSP05 drive without permanently disabling the synchronizing coil--"

"Okay, wow," Finn says, backing away slowly. "I'll, uh, leave you to it. Just let me know if we're all about to get sucked out into the vacuum of space, yeah?"

He gives Poe a crooked grin, though, rolling his eyes conspiratorially as he goes, and Poe, as per usual, finds himself smiling back.

When he turns back to Rey, her eyes narrow in a way that suggests they're about to embark upon a very _different_ argument, so he immediately makes an embarrassingly boneheaded suggestion about the synchronizers just to derail her.

* * *

They manage to establish a working truce rather than tear the Falcon apart between them, and the rest of the trip to their first scouting location passes without a hitch. Probably because everyone sleeps through most of it.

The first potential base is on a mountainous planet with lots of canyons and crevasses, good for hiding ships -- "Assuming you've got pilots talented enough to navigate them," Rey remarks, thoughtfully enough that Poe doesn't take offense -- and some semi-functional remnants of the old Rebellion equipment in a cliffside camp. It'd take a deal of work to get operational, but that's likely true of anywhere they wind up. Rey meditates on the cliff face for well over an hour while Poe and Finn poke around through the ruins, and when she joins them, it's with no further guidance from the Force.

"I'm not sensing any real red flags," she says. "I'm not particularly attuned to the planet, either, though. It's a bit of a blank slate."

"That's not a bad thing, though," Finn points out. "Nothing wrong with neutrality."

Poe steps back out to the rim of the canyon, assessing the landscape from a strategic standpoint. "It's definitely defensible, and gives good cover. But we'd have to rely heavily on remaining hidden. I don't like our chances under a direct assault -- this cliff's not gonna take a pounding, there are too many potential rockfalls. A few well-placed cannon blasts, and the whole thing would collapse around us. I'd rather keep looking."

The second possible base is located about fifty kilometers away from the nearest civilian population, which Poe judges way too close as the X-Wing flies, so it's a non-starter.

"I'm surprised the General even included that on her list," he comments, as they prepare to leave atmo. "She doesn't like putting the natives at risk when she can help it."

Finn, studying the planet's surface from where he's standing behind Poe, leans forward and traces a line through the air, his other hand solid and warm on Poe's shoulder. "Look at the way that city sprawls out, over there," he says. "That's relatively newly built -- boom town. I'll bet that was barely even a settlement during the Rebellion. Wonder what they've got here to cause that kind of rapid growth?"

There's an edge to his voice that Poe doesn't like. "First Order, you think?" he asks quietly.

"Not positive, but that style of construction sure looks familiar."

They don't encounter any further evidence of First Order activity in that sector, but it leaves them all uneasy.

Third time is not the charm. The moon seems abandoned, all right, but Rey doesn't even need to meditate on it -- she goes sickly pale the second she steps foot off the Falcon.

"The Knights of Ren have been here," she murmurs. "Not long ago. Searching."

Poe is about as Force-sensitive as a brick. Less, probably, since bricks come from clay, which is of the earth. He absolutely _believes_ in it, though. And he's not gonna be to the one to gainsay anything that puts that look on Rey's face. "Searching for what?" he does ask.

"I don't know." Her tone is curt. "But whatever it was, it reeks of darkness."

So they leave that moon behind. Finn sticks close to Rey's side throughout their next jaunt through hyperspace, anxiously solicitous, and at one point Poe finds them sleeping curled up together in one bunk like a couple of nesting porgs (of which the Falcon now houses several, to Poe's mingled dismay and amusement). There's a curious innocence about them. He can't even bring himself to feel properly jealous, just tugs a blanket up over their shoulders and wanders off to find his own berth.

He sleeps fitfully, and though he doesn't really remember his dreams, he jerks awake more than once with the lingering sense-memory of clamps around his wrists and legs, the bitter scent of scorched flesh, the impression of something cold and sharp drilling deep into his mind.

* * *

Some hours later, while Rey's off tinkering with the sensor arrays and he and Finn are playing a desultory game of dejarik, he can't help but ask -- "So, you and Rey. Is that, um, a thing now?"

Finn blinks at him across the holographic pieces. "Huh?"

"It's great if it is!" Poe says quickly, plastering on a smile. "I mean, I know you really care about her, and she's smart and attractive and if you make each other happy--"

"Hold on," Finn says. "You think that Rey's my girlfriend or something?"

Poe's stomach flips awkwardly. He is a grown-ass man with many, many sexual partners in his past, this is ridiculous, why is he suddenly an idiot teenager again? "I don't know, that's why I'm asking. You two seem pretty cozy."

"Uh, okay," Finn says, leaning forward with his elbows squarely on the gameboard. The Ghhhk hologram waves its arms in irritation at the intrusion. "First off, thank you, I appreciate your thinking I have that much game, but wow do I ever not. Rey's my friend, she's completely gorgeous and I would die for her, but we're not...like that. I don't think she's interested in… _that_ , in general, right now. Whatever that entails. Aren't Jedi supposed to forswear all attachments and stuff anyway?"

This is not something Poe has ever given much thought to, and it sounds like a pretty dumb rule, but Rey's only had like five minutes of proper Jedi training so far so he's not sure it would apply anyway. And the point is: "Don't sell yourself short, Finn," he says quietly. "If you're not interested, then that's one thing, but if you _are_ and the only thing stopping you is thinking that she might not be -- you should talk to her. You'll never know unless you do."

Finn pulls a face, shaking his head. "It's not…" He sighs, looking away. "Okay. You know what? Sure. I'll do that. Can we get back to the game now?"

"Sure," Poe replies, doing his best to disregard the sinking sensation in his stomach. "Your move, right?"

When Finn meets his eyes, there's something flat and unreadable in his expression. "Yeah, I guess so."

* * *

Sometimes, whole hours go by where Poe manages not to think about how severe the Resistance's losses were. An entire day, even, when he doesn't trip himself up mid-thought wondering what his Blue Leader, Tallie, thinks about that weird shimmy they've noticed in the older Y-Wings, or whether Statura will object to the Ikkrukkian infantry's equipment requests.

Then there are times like landing on their fourth prospective base, the forest moon of Ajan Kloss, which looks and feels so much like D'Qar that it's a physical weight in his chest, tugging down his heart. He lets Finn and Rey scamper off ahead to investigate the location, BB-8 spinning merrily along at their heels, while he just sits on the Falcon's entrance ramp and listens to the wind rustle through the trees, the buzzing and warbling of countless unknown native species of insects and birds, and tries to force the breath into and out of his lungs. The air is humid and heavy. It doesn't help.

The gradual passage of time and widening of perspective is helping Poe to understand that very few of their losses were actually his fault. He's not responsible for the First Order's attack on D'Qar, nor could he or anyone else possibly have anticipated the pursuit through hyperspace. His moribund little mutiny afterward hadn't gotten anyone killed, not even himself, and even if he'd been actively working _with_ Holdo the whole time instead of at cross-purposes, they still likely wouldn't have been able to save the other ships in their fleet. He'd made some truly boneheaded calls, sure. He hadn't helped the situation like he should have. But the blame lies squarely at the feet of the First Order, not Poe Dameron, and he's trying to set his ego aside enough to accept that as fact.

But the survivor's guilt is still very real, and no one has really had the chance to just...grieve.

It's something that sets Finn and Rey apart from the rest of them. Not that they haven't suffered in this fight, nor that they have nothing of their own to mourn, but they're still -- separate, in a way. Protected. There's an innocence to them, still, a brightness that hadn't been truly dimmed yet. It's particularly remarkable in Finn, Poe thinks, whose inner spark should have been mercilessly snuffed out by the First Order _years_ ago, and yet -- here he is, his own man through sheer strength of will, laughing and joking with Rey as they return from their little scouting expedition.

Poe's glad he found Rey, really. They both deserve that comradeship, that shared light. They're both so damn _young_ , and kind, and beautiful. They don't need a cynical old soldier like Poe dragging them down.

Maybe a part of him...lets Finn go, there, in that quiet moment. In a way. It's not because of his closeness with Rey, whatever form that might take. It's just that Poe's got a lot of his own shit to work through, in his own head, before he'll be ready to let anyone else in. And that's what he _wants_ , with Finn -- not just a quick fumble, a bit of fun with a bit of all right, but something to genuinely share. It's been a long while since Poe had someone like that.

He can wait a little while longer. And if it loses him any chance at building that with _Finn_ , well. Better to miss an opportunity than drag Finn down into his nightmares with him, and break them both in the process.

Less than a month after the Resistance officially relocates to its new home on Ajan Kloss, the long-dead Emperor Palpatine's mysterious broadcast echoes along airwaves all across the galaxy. And Poe's glad, then, for his choice. This is no time to build any sort of relationship.

It's time to _fight_.

* * *

Later, much later, after surviving the sinking fields of Pasaana and the back alleys of Kijimi, that asshole Hux's unexpected intervention and the mission to Kef Bir, meeting the gaggle of ex-Troopers and loosing Rey to follow her own dark obsession, losing Leia--

_Leia_.

The shock of it hits Poe like falling into ice water, and he nearly drowns there for a time. He's eight years old again, listening to his father tell him that his mama is gone, that she can never come back to them. That same freezing _emptiness_. 

And he's, what, supposed to take her place somehow?

That's a load of bantha shit right there. But he's gonna do what little he can, and hope like hell it's enough.

So: after all that. After he's appointed Finn his co-general, because no one person could possibly fill Leia's boots alone; after Lando has set off with the Falcon on a last, desperate gambit in search of reinforcements; after the whole Resistance has committed to a battle against insurmountable odds, on the fragile hope that they _won't be alone_ \--

He's prepping his trusty old X-Wing for the trip to Exegol, BB-8 already mounted and ready to fly, when there's a hard grip on his arm. He looks up to see Finn there, jaw set in determination, eyes glittering in the stark floodlights of the hangar.

They're surrounded by the chaos of dozens of pilots and mechanics racing around, engines revving, people shouting instructions and making their own farewells, and as far as Poe is concerned, there's absolutely no one else within a thousand kilometers.

His throat feels tight. He coughs to clear it. "General," he says, gruffly.

Finn's lips twitch in what might almost be a smile. "General."

Poe wracks his brain for something to say. Something clever, or pithy, or encouraging. His mind is as barren as the deserts of Jakku. "You ready for this?" is all he says, inanely.

"As I'll ever be, I guess." Finn's hand tightens on Poe's arm convulsively. "Listen. This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I just realized. The thing with what I wanted to tell Rey, when we were sinking into that stupid quicksand. Why you kept bringing it up afterwards, and what you must've thought."

Poe feels his ears burn hot. He's very glad that he doesn't have a complexion prone to blushing. "It really doesn't matter, Finn, I was just trying to needle you -- distractions, you know, in dire situations, to take the edge off? I know it's none of my business--"

"Rose Tico kissed me once," Finn blurts out. And wow, of all the things Poe might have imagined he could say next, that had _not_ made the list, shockingly enough. "On Crait, after her accident."

Poe blinks, trying to connect the dots there. "After she saved your life by crashing your little suicide run, you mean."

"Yeah." Finn lets go of him, then, rubbing the back of his own neck, a little awkwardly. Poe immediately misses his touch and hates himself for it a little. "We'd been through some really intense stuff together, and she thought she was dying, and so she kissed me."

"Well, imminent death has a tendency to hone one's focus," Poe points out, trying very hard _not_ to stare at Finn's lips. Now that he mentions it, and all.

"Yeah, it does, but I don't think that's the best way to--" He cuts himself off, shaking his head impatiently. When he tries again, his tone is low and intent. "Poe. This is it, right? The big one. Either of us might die."

Poe swallows hard. "Yeah, buddy. We might."

"Okay." Finn puts both his hands on Poe's shoulders, gripping hard, and the bottom actively drops out of Poe's stomach. "So I'm not gonna kiss you."

"Um." Poe blinks rapidly again. This has been a very confusing conversation. "I didn't expect--"

"No, _listen_ to me," Finn goes on urgently. "I'm not going to kiss you right now, because if you actually want this as much as I do, you're damn well going to live through this stupid battle so that we can figure our shit out _properly_ afterward. You understand what I'm saying?" He gives Poe a little shake. "Not just because we might die. Because we're going to _live_."

The thing is: Poe still hasn't pulled his shit together. His nightmares never really stopped; they did change, though. They softened, sometimes, or faded away for weeks on end, but he still occasionally wakes up choking back screams. He's been tense and twitchy and irritable for longer than he'd like to admit, and he might never really be the hero of his own story. But it's been a long time since he's had any desire to go out in a blaze of glory. He wants to survive this shitstorm, and keep as many of his friends alive in the process as humanly possible. He wants to figure out what _after_ looks like.

And he sure as hell wants Finn to be there with him.

"Yeah," he manages to say aloud, somehow. "Yes. Finn, _yes_."

"Good." Finn's grip tightens again, just for an instant, and then he releases Poe and steps back. His eyes are shining like the sun. "Then I'll see you on the flip side. General."

He snaps off a crisp salute, equal to equal, and Poe returns it automatically. His heart is pounding like he's just run a damn marathon. He's never been so impatient to get in the air -- not for the love of flying itself, but so that he can come back down to earth after.

As Finn starts to walk away to his own ship, Poe abruptly remembers how this little chat started.

"Hey, Finn!" he calls after him, and Finn turns back, brows raised. "So what _were_ you gonna tell Rey?"

Finn grins. "I'll tell you both," he promises. "When we get back."

Poe's going to hold him to that.


End file.
